I’m listening to Fresh Air right now and Grover Norquist just compared the estate tax to the holocaust! Apparently he sees a connection between Nazi Germany singling out Jews for torture and execution and “the government” singling out really, really rich people who die for contributing something back to society. What an asshole…

To find a station where you can hear this interview, click here.

[Update : Atrios just posted the following transcript]

Norquist [Discussing the estate tax] : I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it’s only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that’s the morality of the Holocaust, it’s only a small percentage, it’s not you it’s somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it’s not just, if you’ve paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.

Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?

Norquist: No, the morality that says it’s ok to do something to a group because they’re a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn’t target everybody. It’s just a small percentage what are you worried about? It’s not you. It’s not you, it’s them. And arguing that it’s ok to loot some group because it’s them, or kill some group because it’s them, and because it’s a small number, that has no place in a senate society that treats people equally. The government’s going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I’m only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn’t affect the rest of you, I’m only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.

The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it’s immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.

Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?

Nordquist. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don’t let this bother you I’m only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it’s immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn’t be shooting anyone. And they shouldn’t be taking half of anybody’s income or wealth when they die.

I am so tired of the conservative “taxes = theft” argument. To hear people like Nordquist spin it, you’d think the only “unfair” taxes are those that are levied against unearned income like capital gains. Bullshit. If the choice is between taxing “found money” or income earned by working your ass off, I’m going to fall on the side of taxing “found money” every time.